Thomas C. Schelling earned his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1951, was on the faculty of Yale University from 1953–1957, spent 1958–1959 at the RAND Corporation, and then 1959–1990 at Harvard, in the Department of Economics, Center for International Affairs, and John F. Kennedy School of Government. From 1990–2005 he taught at the University of Maryland’s Department of Economics and School of Public Policy.

Prior to his PhD studies, Schelling was a fiscal analyst at the US Bureau of the Budget from 1945–1946 and then spent 1946–1948 doing graduate work at Harvard. He was in the Marshall Plan Mission to Denmark during 1948–1949 and the European Office of the Marshall Plan in Paris during 1949–1950. He then served on the White House Foreign Policy Staff during 1950–1951, and in the Executive Office of the President (foreign aid programs) from 1951–1953.

Schelling’s main theoretical interests have been bargaining, conflict and cooperation, racial segregation, and techniques of self-management. His main policy interests have been nuclear weapons, the limitation of war, climate change, foreign aid, and nicotine.

Major books authored by Schelling include The Strategy of Conflict (1960), Strategy and Arms Control (1961, with Morton H. Halperin), Arms and Influence (1966), Micromotives and Macrobehavior (1978), and Choice and Consequence (1984). His latest book is Strategies of Commitment and Other Essays (2006).

He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy and the National Academy of Sciences Award for Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War. In 2005 he received, jointly with Robert Aumann, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

A summary of some of the most critical aspects of the economic and financial risks from climate change faced by society today, resulting from a workshop hosted by RFF and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

In the twentieth century, flooding caused more deaths and property damage in the United States than any other natural disaster. Most climate models predict that flooding will worsen in the future, a prospect that is leading a growing number of communities to explore the use of natural areas as protection against extreme events.